My prediction came true

New Zealand’s television line-up is about to get a bit of a shakeup, with more to come. From next week, channel positions will change, and much later on, the government plans on forming a new public broadcaster out of two Crown-owned media entities. Some of this is quite meta, and much of it only of interest to New Zealanders, but it will also mean changes for this blog—because my prediction came true.

Back in September of last year, I wrote about Discovery Networks NZ (aka Discovery, Inc) buying the TV channels of Mediaworks, and I noted that their two free-to-air music video channels were likely doomed: “It seems highly improbable that the new owners will keep the music video channels.” In that same post I noted that Discovery had a lot of programming that it owned, and so, it had plenty of content to fill those two channels. I said:

The company’s international division… owns a lot of channels around the world, so they have some options for what to use when replacing the two music video channels. It seems unlikely to me that they wouldn’t do that: They already own the programming, don’t need to license the content, and it would be much cheaper than making programming for New Zealand.

I got it exactly right.

The company is ending The Edge TV and The Breeze TV on Monday, March 21, and that means the only free-to-air music video TV channel (one I’d describe as currently broadcasting music “most of most days”) will be Juice TV. I talked about that channel back in May of 2020, and I’ve noticed that it’s now more likely to broadcast mainstream music videos than the original version did, but its content is still largely not mainstream. The two former video channels will be available to stream from their respective radio channels’ websites, but, who actually does that? I never did before, and it seems unlikely I will now (I’d have to launch a web browser on one of my devices to watch it on TV, which is possible, but cumbersome.

The change to music video channels means that it’s improbable that I’ll find much new music, since I don’t listen to radio anymore, and so, the main driver of my old “Weekend Diversion” posts will be gone. That doesn’t mean they’re dead, though: I’ll talk about older music (as I’ve always done), and I’ll still occasionally run across new music by accident (usually when it’s a music bed in a video, or used in a commercial or something). We’ll see. At any rate, the loss of the free-to-air music video channels again will definitely affect what music I write about, and how often. Again

One of the music channels is being replaced by a new channel, called “Rush”. That channel appears to be a New Zealand—perhaps, “New Zealandised”—version of the company’s Australian channel, “9Rush”, which is a joint venture with Australian broadcaster, 9 Network. Its programming is supposed to be “adventure” stuff targeting males 25 to 54, the same demographic that TVNZ’s “Duke” channel originally targeted, though it no longer does.

Discovery’s other new channel is actually rebranding/replacing a channel they already owned, Choice TV. The rebranded it “eden” (all lowercase) is promising "A Better Everyday". The channel will apparently carry many of the same programmes Choice TV had, but also some drama, among other things, that Choice didn't broadcast. There will also apparently be at least one “local show”, though at the moment I’m not clear if that announced show is NZ-made or Australian-made. A eden+1 channel, which will carry eden programming on an hour delay, will also be added, replacing the other music video channel.

All of these are part of a larger re-jig of the channels on free-to-air Freeview and also on pay-TV Sky. Many of the changes are of a “housekeeping” nature, such as, putting all the +1 channels together and adding a one before their channel position (so, TV One+1 will become 11, Two+1 will be 21, Three+1 will become 13; the new eden channel will by 8, and its +1 will be on 18). This change makes a lot of sense for people with remotes that allow channel changing by number, which my current Android box doesn’t (that box is a topic for another day), so for me this change doesn’t give me or folks like me anything at the moment, but I think it might eventually matter for me.

A complicating factor in all this is that Discovery and Warner Media are merging into a new company (to be called Warner Bros. Discovery), which will, among other things, allow them to combine their online streaming services (the Discovery+ streaming service isn't very old and, as far as I know, neither it nor Warner Media's HBO Max service are available in New Zealand). I have no idea whether this merger will be good or bad for consumers, however, reducing the number of streaming services would be welcomed by a lot of people, including me: To access all programming available through streaming services, every month someone would probably have to spend at least five times what they’d pay for ordinary pay TV—though, if they had ordinary pay TV, they wouldn’t be able to access all the content available. Also, not all streaming services are available in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, other changes are in the planning stages. Last week, the NZ Government announced plans to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new public broadcasting entity. The new entity will be funded by a combination of advertising, as TVNZ is now, and also government support, because the intent is to end the requirement that the entity has to return a dividend to the Crown, as TVNZ currently must (RNZ is commercial free). While details and specifics of the merger are awhile off yet, the new entity is intended to ensure public broadcasting will continue, and to provide New Zealanders “with high quality, independent, timely and relevant media content,” as Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi put it.

The merger means that regardless of what the for-profit companies do, New Zealand content (especially Māori content) will continue to be made and broadcasted. It’s way too early to tell if Discovery will make much local content for any of the channels it bought, but they may not be interested in producing New Zealand-specific and Māori content when they have so much foreign content they can simply re-purpose. However, a strong public broadcaster making local content could provide strong competition for viewers, and so, advertising revenue—and that might provide an economic incentive for Discovery to make local content. Hopefully.

Things are definitely changing for television in New Zealand, and I’ll be interested to see what Discovery's new channels broadcast, even if it’s all foreign. I watch TV to be entertained and informed, and sometimes foreign content is—for me—better at one or the other than a local programme might be. Not always, but, the competition for eyes can make locally-made NZ content better, too. Hopefully.

Television hasn't been a unifying force ever since pay-TV took off and splintered audiences: With zillions of things to watch at any given moment, the odds there'd be a mass audience for one single broadcast became extremely rare—and that only become more true when streaming services appeared. Because of that, the changes made by Discovery may not really matter much. New Zealanders will still have NZ-made programming to reflect us and tell our stories, no matter what Discovery (and, evenetually, Warner Bros. Discovery) does. This is why my own reaction to all this change is mostly a shrug of the shoulders.

There's one thing, though, that I want to note for my personal history: Those video music channels kept me company during the original Covid lockdown, a period when I was also in my first year without Nigel. They were, at the time, very valuable to me. However, I gradually watched them less and less over time, and the channels I watched the most were TVNZ's TV One or a couple of Discovery's NZ channels, including Choice TV.

All of which means that whatever happens in the shakeups and rearrangements, we'll all adapt just fine, like we always have. We already have plenty of viewing options, after all, and we can always find something to watch.